Can't Be Love

by Julie Trettel

  “You started it.”

  We moved into the living room and sat side by side on the couch waiting. The front door opened and slammed shut.

  “Madelyn? I thought you all were going to lie low and take it easy tonight?” I heard my mother say. Thomas and I shared a look and laughed as Kelsey walked in, shaking her head at us.

  “Lily’s upset about Thomas. I needed to come over and check on her.”

  “Oh really?” my mom asked from the doorway, giving us both that deadly mom stare. I’d always hated that look. Even as a grown woman it made me squirm in my seat next to Thomas.

  Maddie walked in and set the carrier down, too distracted with baby Sara to take notice of us.

  “Oh, give me, give me,” I begged when Sara was finally free.

  MC turned to pass the baby to me and froze. One hand went to her hip as she too gave us the mom face, causing Kelsey to giggle.

  She handed me the baby and I cuddled the sweet little girl. She was so precious, and I suddenly couldn’t wait to be pregnant and have one of my own.

  “Say hi, Uncle Thomas,” I said in a gooey voice reserved only for babies and puppies.

  “You played me. Both of you,” Madelyn confronted us. “It was all made up, wasn’t it?”

  “I nearly peed,” Kelsey confessed. “They’re terrible.”

  “So you guys are okay?” she asked, still sounding concerned.

  “Never better,” Thomas said.

  MC flopped down on the couch next to me. “I was about to take a hot bath while the baby slept.”

  “Oh please,” I snorted, passing Sara to Thomas and turning to face Maddie. “You’d much rather hang out with us tonight anyway. You just needed a little prodding to get here.”

  She smacked me in the face with a throw pillow. “Maybe, but you still suck. Both of you. Are you really okay?”

  I nodded. “We’re good.”

  She blew out a breath. “I’ll just be happy when you’re officially bonded and can no longer pull this crap on me.”

  Thomas and I both laughed. “I promise you, we’ll still pull this crap after we’ve bonded.”

  “So you’re going to go through with it? Like this is it? You’re serious and not teasing me?”

  To put it all to rest, I pulled down the collar of my shirt and showed her the bond mark he’d left there. “Done deal. I’m afraid you’re officially stuck with me as family . . . again.”

  Madelyn squealed and launched off the couch to tackle us, baby and all, in a huge hug.

  “And you’re happy about it, right?” she questioned, sobering for a minute.

  “Extremely,” I admitted.

  “Both of you?” she asked, looking at Thomas.

  “Never happier,” he told her.

  “I’m calling Liam right now. He took Oscar over to the office for a bit so I could have some quiet, but he’ll want to know about this for sure.” When she hung up the phone after animatedly telling my twin about us, Maddie yelled into the kitchen where Mom had escaped to. “Mary, Liam’s on his way. We’re staying for dinner.”

  Thomas

  Chapter 26

  Maddie and I actually sat down and talked, really talked. It was both awesome and therapeutic and made the entire trip worth it. Mary Westin’s infamous Tuesday night family dinner was certainly an experience. I felt like I was being drilled by a firing squad between Lily’s father and brothers, but in the end, I passed their tests and was welcomed with open arms to the family.

  Kyle had been a little put off that he hadn’t been informed sooner, but Dad’s notice to the packs was going out the next day. I apologized to Kyle for coming into Westin territory uninvited, but I genuinely thought Lily had taken care of it. He assured me that I was welcome anytime and not to worry about it. Formal invitations were not necessary amongst family.

  The Westins were very different from my own family. They were loud and wide open with each other. Nothing seemed off-limits, and Mary knew everything there was to know about each of her children.

  With my parents, especially my mom, I always felt like I had to walk around on eggshells. I didn’t like upsetting her, and maybe it was a product left over from the days of Maddie missing, but I never felt like I knew for sure what would set her off and send her running away in tears. It was kind of refreshing not to have to deal with that here. Mary seemed to take as good as she gave.

  It wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon that I was finally able to corner Kyle and really talk.

  “Hey, you got a moment to talk?” I asked him.

  “Sure man, anytime. Come on in,” he said, ushering me into his office. I closed the door behind me, knowing he had a dampener in the room so the others couldn’t hear us. “What’s up?”

  “Tell me what you know about the Verndari,” I said, cutting to the chase.

  “I knew you’d get around to asking eventually. Honestly man, Patrick’s my go-to for them. Whatever he told you, I probably can’t add much more to it.”

  “Fair enough. So tell me about Westin Force then.”

  “How about we go for a ride and I show you instead?”

  A few minutes later we left the house and drove down the mountain to the lodge just outside Westin territory. I had been there before and had already pieced together that they were housing the unit there.

  “Patrick explained what the Force does?”

  “More or less,” I confessed.

  “So you know the Force is not only watching the Verndari, for any signs of rogue activity, but also shifters worldwide, right?” he asked as we were walking into the lodge.

  “Yes, he did mention that. But he didn’t explain how exactly that was taking place, or whether or not I needed to be concerned for my Pack.”

  “You wouldn’t be in line for Alpha if you didn’t ask that, but you have nothing to fear from us, Thomas. Collier is safe and will remain so under my watch. A month ago, heck a few weeks ago, I probably wouldn’t have given you the time of day regarding all this, but you’re family now and we take care of own, and we do try to help those that aren’t, they just don’t know it.”

  Once inside, we turned down a hallway that I knew was filled with nothing more than hotel-style rooms. I had stayed there myself during the Grand Council gathering. We walked through the roped-off construction area, and once on the other side it looked no different than the rest of the floor.

  “My men stay in this wing,” he informed me as we got on an elevator. Kyle swiped a card and punched in a combination of numbers on the pad. The elevator started to descend.

  I knew we were on the first floor. I hadn’t even noticed there was a basement. The elevator seemed to be dropping even lower than that, though. When it finally stopped and the doors opened, Kyle said, “Welcome to Base 1.”

  I was not prepared for what I stepped into. There was a dozen or so people all sitting at work stations with at least three large monitors, each tuned to nearly every news station on the planet. One window looked out into a data center filled with thousands of servers.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “Who’s that, boss? I don’t have any visitors on the schedule today and no time for tours,” said a short, portly man with glasses too big for his face as he approached.

  “Thomas, this is Archie. Archie, this is Thomas Collier,” Kyle said, making the introductions.

  “Thomas Collier, wolf, future Alpha of Collier Pack, official notice of bonding with Lily Westin was just released this week. Congratulations.” Before I could say thanks, he turned to Kyle. “Now what’s he doing here?”

  “Be nice, Archie. Thomas is family now,” Kyle warned. “They took my sister right under our noses. I don’t ever want that to happen again. Thomas will protect Lily, but only if we give him the knowledge and resources he needs to do so. Plus, we always talked about spreading out to include our ally packs. You know that.”

  “Yes, but we’re not ready for that yet,” Archie argued.

  “Well, too bad
. We’re there. Collier Pack is our first official ally, and privy to all information. Got it?”

  Archie nodded, causing his too-big glasses to bounce on his face. “You’re the boss.”

  He started walking away, but Kyle followed, so I did, too.

  Archie sighed, stopping at the window looking down into the data center. “So, this is Base 1, headquarters. The moles have been monitoring shifter traffic for many generations. Joining forces with Kyle and the Westin Foundation has allowed us to bring our facilities up-to-date with all the latest and greatest technology. What you’re looking at here is a new state-of-the-art data center, housing super-computers that allow us access to nearly every private and government agency in existence, as well as major satellite systems, to aid in our efforts.”

  “The moles?” I asked, trying not to snicker and hoping I heard that wrong.

  “Yes,” Kyle confirmed. “Archie is a mole shifter. It was sheer luck that had us stumbling across the moles as we began start-up of Westin Force. Jacob had passed along copies of documents of known shifter families throughout history, and we started mapping out last known locations and researching old family names in the areas.”

  “My boys flagged the activity during their online searches, and we basically stumbled right over each other,” Archie concluded.

  “After some initial hesitation on both our parts, we made a pact and joined forces. Our combined efforts give us so much more reach and knowledge,” Kyle explained. “The moles already had the infrastructure in place, to a certain degree.”

  “We have underground facilities and tunnel systems through most major cities across the world. What can I say? It’s in our DNA, and what we do. Some moles were designed for building, some were built for designing. I keep a small team of six of us here, all designers, like me. We excel in coding and keeping a low online profile. We can dig into code, break through firewalls, and place tracker software with virtually no footprint, which helps us monitor top secret government and private systems.”

  “So you’re highly skilled hackers is what you’re saying?” I asked sarcastically.

  Archie glared at me but continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Kyle insisted on having headquarters close to home, and who were we to argue? My boys had been itching to dig, something that hadn’t been done in decades aside from upkeep and repairs. Let’s face it, we can’t exactly get away with digging in today’s modern world with all the red tape, permits, and humans watching. Fortunately for us, my ancestors took care of everything we would ever need in that regard. But this place,” he said, looking around proudly, “this is a masterpiece. It’s fortified, virtually undetectable by satellite even. The project was covered by the building of the lodge and entirely protected behind the greatest firewall system ever invented.”

  “Let me guess? You designed it,” I said, starting to understand the ego of this guy.

  “Of course I did,” he snapped.

  “Okay, you get the gist of the monitoring side of Base 1. Thanks, Archie. I’ll take it from here,” Kyle said as the mole shuffled off, talking to himself. “I know, he’s a strange one, but the things he can do with a computer would blow your mind.”

  “I have no doubt about that,” I said, trying to wrap my head around it all.

  Kyle led me to the end of the monitoring room and through another door. There was a long hallway with several doors off to either side. Kyle told me they were offices and emergency escape routes. We didn’t stop till we reached the door at the very end of the hallway.

  “They’ll be in training right now, so we need to be quiet, but I wanted you to get a glimpse of Bravo Company. This is also their headquarters. There are also Charlie and Delta teams. For security purposes each elite forces unit has a different operations headquarters. Bravo is our top team. They’re the ones that went in to help rescue Lily.”

  He opened the door and we walked out to an observation deck. Below, the team was working out in formation. I saw an indoor shooting range, more tactical gear than I could ever fathom, a full gym, and a room with chairs and a white board. The men were big, built, and looked mean as hell. I recognized one or two of them from our adventure in Alaska, but I had been so focused on Lily that I hadn’t stopped to really give them the time of day. Somehow, they looked even more intimidating here.

  Kyle waved to the one I assumed was the team leader and then motioned for us to leave. He didn’t speak until the door was closed behind them.

  “I don’t really mess with those guys. So far, I really haven’t needed them for much. They’ve assisted with things like the roundup of some rogue tiger shifters that were harassing Chase last year after escaping a Verndari facility, and of course, most recently, the helped with Lily’s rescue. Archie sends them out to acquire information that even he can’t get online. They also have their own private mercenary jobs for extra money. As long as it stays on the up-and-up and doesn’t interfere with Westin Force business, we have the understanding that they are free to take on those type of assignments. Right now it’s a win-win for all of us.”

  “And the Verndari—you’ve mentioned them a few times. You work with them? But aren’t they the ones who kidnapped my mate?”

  “Now don’t get all worked up. Yes, we work with some Verndari. Not all of them are bad, Thomas. We have our inside guys and they are great at sharing much needed information with us, like the coordinates to Lily’s location. They’ve helped save Elise in the past, and the couple that your sister lived with all those years are also Verndari. They love her like a daughter and would never do anything to hurt her or Oscar. Somehow, they never knew about Maddie. The trauma of the rape meant her wolf never surfaced, but they knew her rapists were likely tiger shifters and they’ve protected Oscar his entire life. It’s brought us a unique connection to the Verndari.”

  I growled, hating to hear him speak so candidly about Maddie’s attack and her time away from us. I still hadn’t fully resolved my feelings about it all.

  “Calm down. I understand. It took a lot of restraint not to rip their throats out last year when we crossed paths with those tigers.”

  “You crossed paths with the tigers that raped my sister? And they’re still alive?” I growled between gritted teeth.

  “Maddie’s doing. I get how you feel, but it was her choice. All but one is locked away for good in a Verndari stronghold that they will not escape from. I hate sending any shifter there, but for them, I’d make that exception a hundred times over.”

  “What do you mean all but one? You let one get away?”

  “No, MC did. He was the youngest and, well, you’ll have to ask her the reasons, but she asked us to give him his freedom. I still have extra eyes on him, though. She doesn’t know that, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to her.”

  I took a deep breath. Talking about Madelyn’s rape was enough to send my wolf into stress, putting me on edge.

  “Do you have any questions, or was this enough for now?” Kyle asked.

  “I’m good. It would be best if we head back.”

  “Yeah, I was sensing your wolf’s discomfort with this topic. Your mate will calm him quickly.”

  I nodded, smiling in spite of the situation just at the mention of Lily.

  Kyle laughed. “You’ve got it bad.”

  I shrugged, not bothering to deny it.

  “We’ll be keeping a closer eye on the Verndari from now on. I don’t want you worrying about them coming after your Pack or anything. Ninety-five percent of them are truly harmless. Their mission is to observe and protect, not interact. Westin Force will keep the remaining rogues in line. With the take down of the Alaskan site, we’ve got the last of the information we needed on them. If that changes, or any threat to Collier comes up on the radar, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Thanks, Kyle. I really appreciate that. If there’s ever anything you need or any way I can help, just ask.”

  On the drive back to the house we spoke amicably about family, and h
e shared funny stories about Lily as a kid. He warned me about how difficult she was to wake in the morning and how I better have coffee ready. I just nodded and tried to hide my grin. I had no problems waking my girl each morning.

  When we got back to the house I found Lily and Maddie talking in the living room. Maddie was pacing the room and Lily was sitting on the couch, hugging a pillow to her chest. They both shut up when Kyle and I walked in.

  “I don’t want to know,” Kyle said. “I’ll be in my office.” He left.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  “Out,” Maddie said a little too quickly, glancing at Lily with a look that begged her to be quiet.

  “So? What’s going on?” I asked, unable to help myself.

  “Nothing,” Mad said, a little too quickly once again.

  “You know I can’t exactly lie to him, MC. Don’t put me in that situation, because you know he’s going to ask,” Lily said, talking like I wasn’t even there.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, a little too forcefully while staring at Lily. “Besides, it’s not his problem or concern.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m right here. If you don’t want to tell me, Madelyn, fine. Just tell me you’re okay and I’ll walk away and leave you two alone.”

  “I’m fine,” she said with a straight face.

  “Liar,” Lily chimed in, under her breath as Maddie glared at her.

  “You’re going to tell him everything anyway the second I leave, aren’t you?” my sister challenged my mate. My instincts were to jump in and help Lily, but I knew they were closer than sisters even, so I held back.

  Lily sighed and gave me an apologetic look. “Thomas, can you please leave us alone and don’t question or ask me about all this later? It’s personal and it’s her business, but it’s not bad, and she really is okay.”

  I couldn’t say no to her, so I leaned down and gave her a quick kiss, then nodded my head and turned to leave without another word.